INTRODUCTION: The intestinal constipation is a disturb of the alimentary tract in which its activity is reduced, as well as the frequency of evacuations; associated to dry and hardened excrements witch accumulate because of the long permanence in colon. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate four patients submitted to the total colectomy for the treatment of the intestinal constipation. METHOD: Retrospective study carried through by the analysis of handbooks of patients submitted to the surgical removal of colon in the treatment of the chronic intestinal constipation, in the period of 1998 the 2006. RESULTS: In our casuistry, that involves the HUT and a patient operated at Taubaté's São Lucas Hospital, four patients were submitted to total colectomy for treatment of chronic intestinal constipation. They were all of the feminine sex, with more than 30 years of age and presented more than 10 years of evolution. The results were considered satisfactory by three patients, although one of them evacuate six or more times in a day. The fourth patient related the permanence of the constipation, defecating a time to each seven days, on average. CONCLUSION: The surgical treatment is an alternative in the incapacities chronic cases refractory to other forms of treatment. The patients with surgical indication must be submitted to a physiological evolution and complete clinical inquiry, to confirm of the colonic inertia.
constipation; colectomy